Madame Bovary eBook

Maitre Hareng, buttoned up in his thin black coat,
wearing a white choker and very tight foot-straps,
repeated from time to time—­“Allow
me, madame. You allow me?” Often he uttered
exclamations. “Charming! very pretty.”
Then he began writing again, dipping his pen into the
horn inkstand in his left hand.

When they had done with the rooms they went up to
the attic. She kept a desk there in which Rodolphe’s
letters were locked. It had to be opened.

“Ah! a correspondence,” said Maitre Hareng,
with a discreet smile. “But allow me, for
I must make sure the box contains nothing else.”
And he tipped up the papers lightly, as if to shake
out napoleons. Then she grew angered to see this
coarse hand, with fingers red and pulpy like slugs,
touching these pages against which her heart had beaten.

They went at last. Felicite came back. Emma
had sent her out to watch for Bovary in order to keep
him off, and they hurriedly installed the man in possession
under the roof, where he swore he would remain.

During the evening Charles seemed to her careworn.
Emma watched him with a look of anguish, fancying
she saw an accusation in every line of his face.
Then, when her eyes wandered over the chimney-piece
ornamented with Chinese screens, over the large curtains,
the armchairs, all those things, in a word, that had,
softened the bitterness of her life, remorse seized
her or rather an immense regret, that, far from crushing,
irritated her passion. Charles placidly poked
the fire, both his feet on the fire-dogs.

Once the man, no doubt bored in his hiding-place,
made a slight noise.

“Is anyone walking upstairs?” said Charles.

“No,” she replied; “it is a window
that has been left open, and is rattling in the wind.”

The next day, Sunday, she went to Rouen to call on
all the brokers whose names she knew. They were
at their country-places or on journeys. She was
not discouraged; and those whom she did manage to see
she asked for money, declaring she must have some,
and that she would pay it back. Some laughed
in her face; all refused.

At two o’clock she hurried to Leon, and knocked
at the door. No one answered. At length
he appeared.

“What brings you here?”

“Do I disturb you?”

“No; but—­” And he admitted
that his landlord didn’t like his having “women”
there.

“I must speak to you,” she went on.

Then he took down the key, but she stopped him.

“No, no! Down there, in our home!”

And they went to their room at the Hotel de Boulogne.

On arriving she drank off a large glass of water.
She was very pale. She said to him—­